2018 BMW 330I — Complaint #1954614
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:PROPULSION SYSTEM:TRACTION BATTERY:THERMAL MANAGEMENT:FLUID/COOLANT filed January 2, 2024
NHTSA complaint #1954614 (ODI reference 11563082) concerns a 2018 BMW 330I and was filed on January 2, 2024. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 16, 2023. The vehicle had 51,086 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Colorado based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as electrical system:propulsion system:traction battery:thermal management:fluid/coolant, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same BMW 330I cohort independently describe similar electrical system:propulsion system:traction battery:thermal management:fluid/coolant failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2018 BMW 330I shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owned a 2018 BMW 330I. The vehicle was taken to a local dealer for a Manufacturers Recall: 0017150200 related to the Coolant Leak to be completed. The contact stated that after driving 7 miles to her home at 35 MPH, there was smoke coming from the engine compartment. All the warning lights illuminated. The vehicle was powered off and the smoke extinguished on its own. A fire report was not filed. There were no visible flames. The local dealer was called and the vehicle was towed back to the dealer where it was confirmed that the pressure test was not completed and there was no coolant in the vehicle. The dealer informed the caller that the struts needed to be replaced however the coolant failure was repaired. The vehicle was repaired for the coolant failure however the contact mentioned that the vehicle was not performing as designed. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 51,086.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1954614 |
| ODI Number | 11563082 |
| Date Filed | January 2, 2024 |
| Failure Date | December 16, 2023 |
| VIN | WBA8D9C57JE |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.